


Bringing the Heat

by taiyakisoba



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gentle femdom, Muscles, Volleyball, Wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2014-10-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 04:07:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2454164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taiyakisoba/pseuds/taiyakisoba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been fifteen years since you last met your childhood friend Ayu, and she's no longer the little ponytailed tomboy you remember but a member of her University's volleyball team. She's lost none of her delight in teasing you, though, although her games now have a strangely dominating and erotic edge to them...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [/r9k/](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=%2Fr9k%2F).



> What is gentle femdom? I guess it's like typical femdom, except with a lot more spooning and cuddling and generally loving comfiness. There's a regular thread on 4chan's /r9k/ board about it, and reading the comments there inspired me to try my hand at writing my own 'gentle femdom' story. Visitors from /r9k/ may notice references to certain now-famous >greentext stories (namely 'center of gravity' and 'big spoon, little spoon'): I make no secret of taking inspiration from these, and take the time here to acknowledge them as seminal works of the 'gentle femdom' genre.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story!

Waiting at the train station for Ayu, you’re not exactly sure what to expect. After all, it’s been almost fifteen years since you last saw her, back when the two of you were in elementary school. She used to live next door to you and the two of you were close friends, in the way that only little kids who live next door to each other can be. 

When your mother suddenly asked you last week if you remembered her, all those memories came flooding back. The little tomboyish girl with the pigtails who always seemed to have skinned knees and a smudge of dirt somewhere on her face - she was always dragging you into some adventure or other, whether it was climbing onto the roof of that old abandoned house down the street or throwing rocks at a hornet’s nest. They usually turned out badly, but she always made life interesting. And so, when her family moved away, you quickly found yourself missing her. The two of you promised to keep in touch by email, and you did for a while, but eventually that came to an end. You can’t remember if it was you or her who stopped replying, but whoever it was, you never heard from her again.

Until your mother’s question, you hadn’t thought of her for years. You asked her why she was asking all of a sudden, and she told you that Ayu will be staying at your house for about a few days. 

“She plays volleyball for her college,” your mother explained. “Her team is playing against Kanazawa University next week, so they’ve been looking for people to billet the players. Ayu’s mother asked if she could stay with us, and of course I said we’d be delighted to have her. I thought you two would be able to catch up on old times.”

And so now you’re outside the station waiting for her train to arrive. You’d hoped for a relaxing summer holiday back home doing much not at all, but the thought of seeing Ayu again is kind of exciting. Volleyball? You knew she’d end up doing something sporty. That girl could climb any of the trees in the street in ten seconds flat, even if she did sometimes fall out of them. 

You wonder how you’re supposed to recognise her. All you remember about her is her long black hair and her wide eyes that always had a mischievous gleam in them, but that’s not really enough to go on, is it? If she was with her team-mates, it would have been easier, but since she’s travelling here alone you’ll just have to hope she hasn’t changed much. 

The train arrives and a bunch of people get off. You wait around, feeling a bit awkward looking at each of the young women coming out through the turnstiles. You see one girl about the right age, with long black hair, and she turns and smiles at you. You raise your hand, a smile flashing onto your face, when a guy come past you from behind and hugs her.

Not her, then. You feel a bit disappointed - she was really pretty. 

The crowd thins out. Maybe she caught the wrong train or missed this one? You get your phone out and check it. No missed calls or messages.

When you look back up you see some consternation at the turnstiles. Someone is trying to wrestle a number of bags over them.

You walk up, curious about what’s happening. Who the hell travels with that much luggage on a train? 

One bag comes flying over the turnstile and lands near your feet. It’s a sport bag.

No.

There’s some soft feminine swearing and another two bags join the first. You’re still staring at them when their owner, having struggled through the turnstiles themselves, walks up to collect them.

You look up... and then up a bit more. 

The girl standing near you is easily over six foot. She’s wearing a tracksuit, but even so you can tell that’s she’s really built underneath it; not muscly so much as that firm, powerful body of an athlete. She’s sweating as she runs a hand back through her short, black hair.

“Sorry,” she says. “Give me a sec and I’ll get all this crap out of your way.”

She bends down to pick up the sports bag nearest to you and when she looks up she finally sees you for the first time. 

Her eyes are large and dark and she has a scattering of freckles across her nose. But it’s when she smiles, a wide, mischievous grin like a naughty little kid’s, that you realise it’s her.

“Ayu?” you ask, scarcely able to believe that this is the little girl you used to play with.

Her grin, impossibly, widens some more and she nods. 

“Hey! Long time no see, huh?” She looks you up and down as she hefts the bag nearest to her onto her shoulder and scoops up a second. You realise you’re just standing there staring like an idiot, so you grab up the third bag - with difficulty. It feels like it’s full of rocks. Luckily you’ve parked not too far away otherwise you probably would have crippled yourself. 

Despite your shock at her transformation, you realise you should be making conversation, so you ask her how the trip was.

Ayu chuckles. “I forgot how small the seats on the train are. I mean, I’m used to having no leg room on a plane, but...” She sighs. “I ended up walking up and down the aisle the whole trip. I think everyone in the carriage thought I was obsessive compulsive or something.”

As you help her put her luggage into the car, you feel her eyes on you again, looking you up and down again. 

“You know, you haven’t changed a bit,” she says.

You laugh. “I’m a bit taller.” 

Ayu laughs as well. “Well, yeah. Just a bit. I think I must have stolen some of your height, though.”

It’s a gentle dig, and not an unkind one. The look on her face is strangely shy, though, as if she’s worried she might have taken things too far.

You smile at her to reassure her and she smiles back, relieved. It’s like nothing has changed. She used to tease you all the time when you were kids, too. 

When she gets in the car she fumbles around under the seat trying to push it back to accommodate her legs. You watch her do it with some amusement. The frustration on her face is surprisingly childish, and you realise you can see a lot of the little girl you knew in her: the way she’s biting her lip and muttering under her breath, she could be that little pigtailed girl again, trying to break the chained door to that old, abandoned house open. 

She catches you staring. “Hey, you know how bad I am with this stuff. Are you going to sit there and laugh at me or are you going to help me?”

Red-faced, you lean across and do a bit of fumbling yourself. But you soon find the catch and Ayu slides the seat back as far as it will go. Your car isn’t exactly small, but there’s not a huge amount of space left for her. Those legs are pretty long.

You find yourself staring at them as well, and so you quickly turn away and start the car.

It’s not far to your house from the station, so the two of you give each other the condensed version of everything that’s been happening in your lives: school, work etc. When you tell Ayu what you’re doing, she chuckles.

“Hey, didn’t I always say you’d end up doing something brainy like that?” She sighs. “If it wasn’t for volleyball, I would have flunked out of school years ago. Luckily, someone made a mistake somewhere and I landed that athletic scholarship. I’m still not sure how it happened.”

You tell her you’ve heard that her team’s pretty impressive. “Yeah, well,” she says, “We’ve got a good libero, so that’s half the battle already won.”

“I thought the outside hitter’s supposed to be the best all-rounder,” you say. 

Her eyes go wide. “You know about volleyball?”

“I’ve watched it a couple of times on TV,” you say.

“Women’s beach volleyball, right?” She laughs. “You letch.”

That teasing again. When she was small, it was always kind of funny. But now that’s she’s a big girl, the effect is different. You find yourself, well, enjoying it a bit. Maybe it’s the joking way she says it, that knowing smile on her face when you glance at her. Whatever it is, you decide you don’t mind her gentle bullying. She’s just having fun, after all.

She really has grown up a lot. Physically, you mean. The short hair is what makes her look most different from your memories, though. You decide you like it. For one thing, it shows off her ears and the lightly tanned skin of her neck. 

Suddenly she’s pouting. “It’s my hair, right? You miss my pigtails?”

You start to protest, but she keeps going. “I kinda miss them too, sometimes. I don’t know, a short hair cut is just so, well, adult I guess. I mean, it makes me feel older. You can’t wear pigtails in volleyball though.” She laughs. “Otherwise you end up smacking your setter in the face with them all the time.”

You arrive home. Your mother’s there waiting and she whisks Ayu into the living room for a cup of tea to catch up, leaving you to take her stuff to the guest room. 

It takes you two trips, that heavy sports bag taking up one all by itself. At the end of it you can’t help but sneak a look inside.

There are weights in there, the sort you wear around your wrists and ankles when exercising. No wonder it was so heavy. Then you hear footsteps and zip the bag back up in a panic. 

You leave your mother to show Ayu around the rest of the house and sit down on the sofa. Your heart is still beating fast. Is it from almost being caught snooping, or something else?

It’s a short while later that Ayu returns to the living room with the smaller of her bags. Without saying a word she plumps herself down next to you on the sofa.

“This really takes me back,” she says suddenly. “I don’t know how many hours of cartoons we watched on this sofa together.”

Your mother smiles at the two of you on the way to the kitchen, but as soon as she’s out of sight, Ayu leans across and whispers in your ear.

“I know you were going through my stuff. Did you want to see what kind of panties I wear? Or maybe you’re more into spandex...”

You start babbling, trying to explain that you were only curious about why her sports bag was so heavy and that you didn’t touch her other stuff, and Ayu lies back, her arms along the backing of the sofa and starts to laugh. 

“Hey, I was only joking. No need to get so defensive.” She looks at you with a dark glimmer in her eye. “I wear hi-cut panties, by the way. Plain old cotton, no lacy bits. Lace chafes.”

You stare at her. Is she really sitting there talking about her underwear? She seems to be waiting for you to say something, but the situation is interrupted by the sound of a car’s horn out in the street.

Ayu leaps to her feet. “That’ll be the girls to take me to training. I’ve got to go, but we can catch up properly later.” She winks at you. Then she calls out to your mother, thanking her and runs out through the front door. You get up yourself and duck your head out. There’s a little minibus there, and Ayu is just in the process of getting in it when a girl with sandy blonde hair and freckles leans out of the front passenger side window and spots you. She turns to Ayu, a teasing grin on her face.

“Hey Ayu, that your boyfriend? I think he wants to say goodbye!”

Ayu turns around in surprise. She beams at you and waves. 

The blonde watches with amusement glittering on her face. “C’mon you guys. No long goodbyes. We’ve got a training session to get to.”

The smile falls from her face when Ayu leans across and slaps her arm. “Stop teasing my friend, Michi.” She gives you one last wave and then, turning and laughing with someone inside, she closes the door and the bus drives off.

\------

It’s late in the afternoon when Ayu returns to your place. When she comes in her hair is still wet, fresh from taking a shower. She says hello and throws herself back on the couch. 

“Man, coach was working us really hard today,” she tells you. “He’s always like this when we play away. He thinks we’re messing around every moment he doesn’t have us in the gym or on the court.” She put her right foot up on the edge of the cushion she’s sitting on, lifts the tracksuit leg and starts rubbing at her bare shin. “Damn leg,” she mutters. She sees you watching and she says, “My old wound. The doctor says it gives me grief ‘cause the bone’s still bruised from that time I broke it. Remember?”

You nod. Of course you remember. The two of you had been climbing that tree in the old abandoned block - it’s not there anymore, since the block was bought and a house built on it maybe ten years ago. Some of the other neighbourhood kids were there, egging you on. You decided to quit once you got up about halfway up, and the kids jeered you for being beaten by a girl, since Ayu, as usual, had decided to see how far up she could get. As she neared the top of the tree a branch she grabbed broke and she lost her balance. The next thing you knew she was lying screaming on the ground. The neighbourhood kids took one look at her and scattered in every direction. 

You swung yourself down to the ground and ran to her. She was on her back and clutching her leg, biting her lip to stop herself from screaming while tears streamed down her face.

She was wearing shorts that day, and just below her knee, jutting out of the red mass of blood, was a sliver of pink bone. 

You pushed your own panic down and made her as comfortable as you could then ran and got help. While the adults argued and messed around with her leg, she took hold of your hand and you held it until the ambulance finally arrived.

Wait. The two of you had held hands? 

You’d forgotten all about that until now. 

Ayu notices you blushing. “Hehe. Is my bare skin turning you on?”

You shake your head and she pouts. “You saying I don’t have nice legs?” She runs her fingers along the scar. “I guess the scar _is_ pretty gross.”

She looks up at you from beneath those dark lashes and you detect something in her eyes, a look of sudden vulnerability in direct contrast to that arrogant grin. Maybe she really _is_ self-conscious about it.

You don’t really know what to say, and the moment seems to pass. Ayu pulls down the leg of her tracksuit pants and places her foot back on the floor. Then she starts talking about the old tree and some of the stuff the two of you got up to as kids.

“Hey, remember how we used to wrestle all the time?”

You laugh. Yeah, you do. Back then you beat her most of the time and she used to get pretty annoyed by the fact.

Ayu pouts. “You had better upper body strength back then. I could kick your ass now, though.”

You shrug. “Yeah, but you’re a professional athlete.”

“I’m not professional,” she says. “Anyway, no excuses.” She peels up the sleeve of her top and flexes her bicep. There’s definite muscle there, superbly toned. “This is all the product of hard work. You know, I could show you a few pointers if you like.” She grabs your arm and shakes it. “Like I thought. Soft as blancmange. Don’t you ever get any exercise? And no, masturbating doesn’t count.” 

You start to say something and Ayu just laughs. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered.” Then her face grows serious. “But I am going to have to teach you a lesson, you know. You hurt my feelings earlier.”

Hurt her feelings? How?

“I was obviously fishing for a compliment and you just sat there acting like you didn’t know what I was talking about.” She leans closer, her eyes flashing dangerously. “There’s no way you can be that clueless about women, so I guess you were just trying to make me feel bad.”

You shake your head but Ayu is already getting up off the sofa. “Get up and try me on for size.”

What is she talking about?

“It’s time for a rematch,” she says. “I think I can have you on the ground in under ten seconds.”

Ten seconds? You just need to outrun her, surely?

Ayu laughs. “No, you can’t leave the circle of this rug, okay?” She pushes the sofa back against the wall. “If you do, it’s an automatic win for me.”

You shrug and ask her what the wager is. 

“If I win, you have to go running with me tomorrow morning. If you win, you can do whatever you want to me.”

Is she being serious?

Ayu chuckles. “Hey, I need to give you a real incentive, right? Anyway, there’s no chance you’ll win, so my chastity is pretty safe, I think.”

You laugh and agree to her terms. It’s a pretty stupid game, but you find yourself not really minding the idea of roughhousing with her.

She grabs your arm and pulls you off the sofa. “C’mon, quick bout is a good bout.”

You face each other off and you feel faintly ridiculous. It really has been over fifteen years since you’ve done something like this. You know you’re going to get your ass kicked, but you figure, hell, you should be able to last at least ten seconds, right?

The two of you wait until the second hand of the clock on the wall reaches twelve. Then Ayu moves, faster than you would have given her credit. Her hands are already gripping your shoulders and she leans all of her strength and weight to the left. You find yourself stumbling, trying to keep your feet, and somehow you manage to. You grab her around the ribs, but it’s exactly what she was expecting. She leans backwards and this time you really do lose your footing and she makes you pay for it by lifting you off the ground and slamming you sideways onto the floor. Winded, you’re struggling to get back onto your feet when she spins you onto your back and straddles you, her left arm pressing down on your chest.

You struggle to sit up, but it’s useless. It feels like there’s a cinder block weighing you down. 

You gasp for air and she moves her weight off her arm a little.”Hehe, sorry,” she says. “I guess I should have gone easier on you. I had no idea you were _that_ out of condition.”

You try and say something, but it’s difficult with that inexorable power pressing down on your chest.

Ayu sees you suffering and she smiles. “Oh, this? Old trick. If you press down hard enough on someone’s centre of gravity, they’re basically immobilised. Usually you can’t manage to get in the right position to do it with someone who knows what they’re doing, though.” She shakes her head. “You didn’t even last five seconds. I’m starting to wonder if you wanted to lose...” She leans down over you until her face is about an inch away from yours, her dark eyes glistening. You can feel the warmth of her breath on your lips, smell the sweetness of it over the hot scent of the rest of her body. The corners of her eyes crease and you realise she must be smirking, even though you can’t see her mouth. “Wasn’t the thought of doing whatever you liked to me incentive enough?”

You try to say something, but you just barely have enough to breathe. She sighs and sits up while still straddling you and this time she takes her arm fully off your chest. The explosion of fresh air is paradise. She looks down at you, her expression one of disappointment. “You used to win against me most of the time,” she says. “Except when you let me win. You’ve really let yourself get out of shape. And you _still_ have no clue about women.”

Between gasps of air you ask her what she means.

Ayu sighs again. “Every time you beat me at wrestling and got on top of me, I was waiting for you to lean in and kiss me. And you never once did it. I thought maybe you’d have worked it out by now.”

You really have no idea how to react to what she’s just said. You’ve also got another pressing problem: you’re hard as a rock. Was it having her face so close to yours, that rich, hot scent of hers, the weight of her pressing down on you? Maybe it’s being in her power that’s making your heart race and your blood run fast. 

Ayu has a look of confusion on her face, probably wondering what the hell is wrong with you, but then her eyes glimmer and she smiles. She moves her hips forward and you gasp as the weight of her pelvis rubs against your erection. “Ah,” she says, the smile becoming a smirk. “That used to happen all the time when we were kids, too.” She sits back again, and now her weight is right on top of you. You can feel the heat of her through her tracksuit. “I guess part of you grew up, at least.”

There’s a noise on the front porch and the sound of someone fumbling with keys and Ayu is off you in a flash. You get to your feet just in time as your mother opens the front door. 

As she puts down the grocery bags she’s holding she looks at you. “Are you okay? You’re sweating like crazy.”

You shrug and stammer something about being okay, but she walks over to the thermostat and turns it down anyway. 

Your mother disappears into the kitchen with the groceries and you turn to see Ayu smiling in delight at your discomfort.

Dinner is a surreal experience. After all the teasing and weirdness, Ayu’s behaviour is so charming that it’s almost like she’s a different person. Your mother pumps her for all sorts of information - about her family, her studies. Then suddenly she asks her, “So, is there any man in your life?”

Ayu almost drops her chopsticks. “Man? Oh, no.” She blushes, and the look of embarrassment on her face is so adorable you can’t help but smile. “I guess I just have no time to meet anyone, with all the training and games and stuff, I mean.”

“What a shame,” says your mother. 

When dinner is finished, she excuses herself to have a bath and go to bed. “You kids don’t stay up too late, though,” she says with a wink that makes you groan inwardly.

Once she’s gone upstairs, Ayu looks at you. That mischievous look is back on her face. “Hey, now that your mom’s gone to bed, wanna do something naughty?”

You’ve got no idea what she really means, but you know it’s more teasing. “Sure,” you say. She ducks upstairs and come back with a bottle of wine. 

You had no idea she drank, but Ayu just chuckles. “Well, I’m supposed to stay dry during the lead up to the game, but what the coach doesn’t know won’t kill him. It helps me relax, anyway.” You go and get some glasses and she pours the wine. “Besides, it seems a shame not to celebrate meeting up again after all these years.” she says. She hands you a glass. “Here. This’ll put some hair on your chest.”

The wine’s good. A few glasses later you’re laughing at stuff that happened fifteen years ago that you’d totally forgotten about. 

“I think your mom was trying to set us up,” says Ayu suddenly.

You laugh. “Yeah. She’s always trying to set me up with anyone who’s available. Don’t take it personally.”

Ayu glances at you. She seems upset all of a sudden. You ask her what’s wrong. 

“Oh, nothing. It’s just... well, I was kind of flattered. But now you’re saying that she does it to everyone and... well.” She takes a sip of the wine then swirls it around in the glass, gazing at it.

“Yeah, but you must have a lot of guys after you.”

She looks up at you. “Why do you say that?”

That puts you on the spot. You stammer something and she shakes her head. “I wasn’t fishing for compliments this time. When you’re a giant like me nobody ever looks at you in that way. I mean, I’m taller than most guys, and no one wants a girlfriend that’s taller than him.”

You tell her that’s not true. 

“So you’d go out with someone taller than you?”

Of course you would. 

Ayu shakes her head. “You wouldn’t, really. People would stare, you know. Trust me.” She takes another sip. “I’m just lucky I can play volleyball. If I didn’t have training or games tiring me out all the time I think I’d die from sexual frustration.” She grabs the bottle and stands up. “Let’s go watch some TV.”

The two of you sit down on the couch. With Ayu right beside you, the difference in your height is starkly obvious. You should have guessed she was self-conscious about it and you sit there cursing your cluelessness. The expression on Ayu’s face is uncharacteristically serious, so you quickly turn on the TV, hoping whatever’s on will distract her. 

Luckily, there’s one of those stupid video shows on. The two of you are soon laughing and the awkward atmosphere seems to lessen. With each fresh glass of wine, the laughter gets louder.

“Oh shit,” says Ayu suddenly, putting her hand over her mouth. “We might wake your mother and then she’ll think we’re messing around down here or something.”

You chuckle. “I don’t think she’d mind. She’s always on my back to get out and meet someone.”

Ayu gazes at you over the glass. “So you’re single, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’re a nice guy. I’m sure you’ll meet someone someday.”

A nice guy. Those three words are like a sudden kick to the groin.

She puts the glass on the coffee table and then yawns powerfully, stretching her arms over her head. “Man, I’m beat. I think I’ll lie down for a while.”

She begins to stretch herself out on the sofa, so you get up.

“Where are you going?” she asks as she makes herself comfortable.

“Uh, there’s no space,” you say.

“Stupid,” says Ayu. “Like I want to kick you off your own sofa.” She pats the narrow strip of space in front of her. “You’ll fit if you lie down too.”

“What?”

Ayu rolls her eyes. “Oh come on. I just want to relax a bit and watch the end of this thing. You worried about me touching you up or something?”

She’s called your bluff. Feeling a bit weird, you sit down on the edge of the sofa then lie down across it, being careful to leave a buffer between the two of you. There’s barely enough space and you’re in danger of falling off the edge.

Ayu mutters. “Oh, for god’s sake.” She wriggles herself against the backing and then grabs you around the waist and pulls you flush against her. The warmth of her pelvis is against your butt, and her boobs press against the back of your neck as you play the part of the little spoon.

Your body stiffens at the unexpected closeness. Ayu slips her arms onto yours, hugging you from behind. You can feel the warmth of her breath against the top of your head.

“Try and relax,” she says. “You’re all stiff.” She runs her fingers up your arm and then lets them play along your side, dancing across your ribs. You laugh, partly at the ticklish sensation, partly from nervousness. 

“Shh,” she says, returning her hands to their resting place on top of yours in front of your chest. “I’m trying to watch TV.”

The two of you lie this way until the show ends. The awkwardness gives way to a cosy feeling of comfort. With her arms wrapped around you, your body cradled in hers, you feel safe. But with her boobs pressing against the back of your neck... your dick doesn’t feel relaxed at all.

While the commercials play, Ayu’s hands start to move again.

“You’re a warm little piece of toast, aren’t you,” she murmurs. Her voice sounds sleepy, and drunk, and there is a thick sultriness to it as well, a kind of lazy excitement. “I should take you to bed with me to keep me warm, but I guess we’d end up doing something lewd, wouldn’t we?”

Her hands are over your stomach now and she peels up the bottom edge of your shirt distractedly, as though she’s not aware of what’s she’s doing. Her fingers trace across your stomach. She sighs. 

“Your skin is really soft,” she says. “You could probably stand to do some sit-ups, but I kinda like it. It feels nice.” Then her hands pop back out from under your shirt and drop lower.

You gasp when they come to rest between your legs. You’re already hard. She gives you a playful squeeze. 

“Wow,” she says. “Did I do that? Or do funny cat-videos turn you on?”

You laugh, but it’s a nervous one. What the hell is she doing?

“I think I know why,” she says. “It’s my boobs, isn’t it? The way they’re pressing against your neck.” She laughs. “You know, you’re the perfect size for being the little spoon. My boobs are kind of acting like a neck-pillow, aren’t they?”

Then she falls silent and her hands start to fumble at your belt. You want to ask her what she’s doing, but it’s a stupid question, isn’t it? She’d just laugh at you. You know it’s just more teasing, but the sensations that are coursing through you are incredible. You start to squirm and Ayu whispers into your ear.

“Excuse me,” she says.

She undoes your belt and unzips your pants. Grabbing the waistband with one hand she pulls them down a short way while her other hand slips into your underwear.

She says nothing, but you feel her breath quicken, hot against the back of your head. 

Her fingers curl around the length of your dick and she begins to stroke it, brushing her fingertips underneath up to the head. You feel yourself jerk and she gasps.

“Wow,” she whispers. “This thing has a life of its own.”

Her fingertips slide over the head. You’re already dripping precum, and she dips her fingers in it and smears it across the head and partway down the length. 

You gasp at the intensity of the pleasure that spears into the back of your head.

“Shhh,” she says. “We don’t want to wake your mom, do we? What would she say if she came down and found me with your dick in my hand?”

She starts to stroke you with gentle but firm, regular strokes. You want to moan but bite your lip to stop yourself. 

“Good boy,” she murmurs, kissing the top of your head. As she continues to give you a handjob, she brings her free hand up under your shirt and drags her fingers across your chest, searching for your nipples. She finds them and strokes one and then the other.

“They’re rock-hard,” she says. “And I think you’re getting harder down here as well.”

Her breath is suddenly hot against the back of your neck as you feel her lips press down. She mouths your skin, the boiling wetness of the tip of her tongue darting out to lick at it.

Her lips explore your neck before making their way up to your ear. Her teeth graze the edge of it and then she dips her tongue inside. You cry out this time, but Ayu doesn’t say anything. She just keeps pumping you, faster now. You’re so turned on that precum is flowing freely from you now and her hand is slick with it as she slides it up and down. You start moaning, as quietly as you can manage.

Ayu stops licking your ear and whispers, “I love the cute noises you’re making. You’re like an excited little kitten.”

There’s no turning back now. You feel your balls grow tight and the tell-tale tension gripping the whole of your body. Ayu’s stroking grows feverish and then, suddenly, she bites down on your ear. The mixture of surprise, pain and pleasure drives you over the edge and you come. Thick jets of semen start spilling from you, but luckily Ayu’s her other hand is cupped and ready underneath to catch them. You pant, your entire body tingling with wave after wave of exquisite pleasure, but a strange humiliation swamps you at the same time. She brought you off so quickly with her hands and you just let her. But the warm delight that fills your body makes up for it.

It feels like you’ve come about a gallon of semen. Your dick grows soft as the rest of you goes slack from exhaustion. Ayu lets go of you and sits up. She lifts her hand to her face and examines the pool of white fluid glistening there. A smile slips across her lips.

“I guess you enjoyed that,” she says. Then she gets up ducks off in the direction of the bathroom. By the time she comes back your eyes have already started to shut. You don’t even have the energy to put your dick back inside your pants.

Ayu giggles at the sight and slides herself between you and the backing of the sofa. She runs her fingers over your now-soft dick and chuckles to herself as she pulls your underwear back up.

“Cute,” she says. Then she leans over you and kisses you chastely on the lips. “I always wondered what you’d sound like when you came.”

Fumbling, she pulls your pants back up and does a pretty crappy job of doing up your belt. By now you can’t keep your eyes open and sleep steals over you.

When you wake up, it’s the middle of the night. You’re disoriented for a while, with no idea where you are. Then you hear the snoring that’s woken you up and you turn to see Ayu still fast asleep on the couch and remember everything. 

In the flickering light of the TV, you gaze at the full length of her body draped along the sofa. It’s not long enough for her and she has to bend her knees to fit her legs on it. She really is beautiful, you decide. Asleep, her face has an angelic cast to it: the long eyelashes, the curve of her cheekbones, her mouth with its full lips slightly open as she snores. You can still see the little girl from your childhood hiding in that face. 

But then you notice she has one hand down the front of her pants, as if she fell asleep in the middle of masturbating. You hesitate over whether you should do something about it, since your mother might come down during the night. Well, there’s no way you can carry her up to bed and it seems cruel to wake her up. You wonder if you can just pull her hand out but finally decide not to risk it. Instead, you get a throw and lay it on top of her. It only covers her torso and thighs, so you get another one.

You straighten out the throws and make sure she’s comfortable. What the hell has gotten into her? Before you thought it was just teasing, but now... You wonder if it isn’t still just teasing. She probably isn’t taking any of it seriously. You shouldn’t either, probably. But watching her sleep you feel a sudden melting of your heart. Maybe you’re falling for her.

It’s stupid, though. She’s more than likely just messing around, an adult version of those pranks she always used to play on you.

And yet... you wish you knew for sure how she felt about you.

You lean over and kiss her on the cheek. She mutters in her sleep, shifting her arms as if looking for you. A smile flickers on her face and is gone.

You switch off the TV and go up to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

You wake to what you think is an earthquake. It’s Ayu, shaking you.

“Hey, c’mon. Get up already. You promised!”

Huh? You promised?

Ayu has her hands on her hips. She’s wearing shorts and a tank-top. Bare, her legs are even longer than you realised. “I kicked your ass yesterday, remember? Now you owe me.”

She drags you out of bed and grabs hold of you, trying to pull your pajamas off.

“Hey, wait, what...?”

Ayu clucks her tongue. “Too slow, too slow! We’ve got a couple of miles to jog and no time to do it!”

You pull on some clothes, grab your shoes and then, still half-asleep, you hit the almost deserted streets of the town with Ayu. 

She sprints ahead of you almost straight away and maintains a blistering pace. Your head beats in agonising time to each footfall as you run to catch up with her. You really wish you hadn’t drunk so much last night. 

Ayu eventually takes pity on you and falls back. “Sorry,” she says as you suddenly stop and double over, sweat falling from you in sheets. “I kinda forgot you weren’t used to this kind of thing.” She sighs. “Catch your breath here and I’ll do a couple of circuits round the block and then we can go back home.”

She darts off. After passing you by four or five times, she stops, jogging on the spot, and you peel yourself off the little brick wall you’ve been sitting on, trying to remember how to breathe, and jog back home with her.

She’s taking things a bit slower now. She’s already broken a sweat, a dark patch across the front and back of her top, locks of her hair plastered to her forehead and the back of her neck. Her legs glisten with a fine sheen. 

But most arresting of all is the scent of her. The clean, sharp scent of perspiration and her own body. You remember it from last night, when you were being hugged to her: her individual fragrance, a scent which took you straight back to all those times you spent with her as a kid, crammed together in some tight spot hiding from her big sister.

Incredibly, you feel yourself getting hard again. What the hell is with you? Even exhausted and hung- over she has that effect on you. 

Ayu notices you slowing down and turns and glares at you. You up the pace to catch up with her. As the two of you jog side-by-side, she looks across at you. The glare has been replaced by a strange look, half-pleased, half-mischievous. 

Once back home she pushes past you and races up the stairs to the bathroom. “I call dibs on the shower!”

You sigh as you crawl up the stairs after her. You can already hear the hissing of water through the bathroom door as you walk past it on the way back to your room. 

“Hey, can you get me a towel?” she shouts from inside. You go and get one for her. When you knock on the bathroom door it opens a crack and you hold the towel out for her. She grabs your wrist instead and drags you inside.

Ayu is naked except for the towel she’s wearing around her waist like a guy would, although on her it barely reaches down past her knees. Her chest is totally bare, and being at eye-level you find yourself staring right at it. The air is filled with a fine mist, and it joins with the sweat already there to cover her in a fine sheen making the tanned areas of her skin resemble bronze, like the statue of some Greek goddess. But not all of her is tanned. Her skin is surprisingly pale in the places usually covered by her bathing suit, a one-piece given the thin pale lines down her shoulders and the milky-whiteness that extends from her breasts down to her crotch.

Her breasts. Ever since you felt them against the back of your neck last night on the couch, you’ve been imagining what they’d be like. They do not disappoint. Even with her athletic body, they’re ample, but like the rest of her are toned and show a firmness that hints at the power contained in her body. Her nipples are brown, and larger than you expected.

All of these observations rush through your head in the seconds it takes for her to pull you toward her. She’s grinning at you.

“You fell for the oldest trick in the book,” she says. There’s a hungry intensity in her eyes. “You really need to be more careful. Don’t you know athletes get all worked up after training?”

Still holding onto your wrist she sits down on the edge of the bath. “I guess you enjoyed what we did last night, right? I mean, you did come an awful lot. My whole hand was sticky with it. And the smell...” She sighs. “It made me horny as hell, but then you fell asleep and I tried to help myself out but I guess I must have fallen asleep as well.” She begins to unravel the towel from around her waist with her free hand. “Well, I guess what I’m asking is if you’ll help a girl out. There’s no way I’ll be able to keep my mind on my training today if I’m out of my mind with horniness.”

She lifts her butt and slips the towel off and throws it aside. She sits there, totally naked, her eyes flashing at you with amusement. You haven’t taken your eyes off her for a second. The contrast between the tanned and the pale skin is arresting, just like she’s wearing a cream-coloured swimsuit.

Ayu smiles at you knowingly. “You like my tan-lines? Why am I not surprised? You seem to have a lot of fetishes.”

She lies back, parting her powerful thighs. She’s neatly shaven, her pubic hair dark. “Hope you weren’t expecting me to look like a little girl,” she says, noticing the focus of your gaze. “It chafes terribly if you shave it all off.”

You shake your head. You’ve always liked the natural look. 

Ayu’s eyes are hooded now, that lazy excited look having returned to her face. You don’t need to be told twice. You fall to your knees in front of her and tentatively slip your hands onto her thighs.

“I won’t bite,” she says as you hesitate. It’s not that, of course. It’s just that she’s looks so beautiful lying there, her body so perfect, that you’re gripped with some weird reticence to touch her, as if you’d sully that perfection. But your excitement soon breaks through that reverence and you gently push her legs further apart.

Ayu’s skin is incredibly smooth, but beneath it is the toned firmness that only dedicated training can bring about. And yet, as your hands slide across her thighs, the gasp that emanates from her is so childish, so vulnerable, that it’s almost like it came from someone else. She begins to tremble as you lean forward between her legs.

You caress the inside of her thighs then bring your fingers to her sex and pull it open. Intoxicating is the only word for what you can smell: a mixture of perspiration, her own body’s scent and the rich spiciness of her excitement. 

Ayu squirms a little and you decide there’s no rush. Maybe she should get a dose of her own medicine. You bring your lips closer, your breath hot against her most sensitive spot. She’s glistening with her excitement, red and swollen. You want to dive straight in and taste her, she smells so strong and delicious, but instead you start to kiss the inside of one thigh and then another. You dart your tongue out, flicking it across the smoothness of her skin, tasting the clean, fresh saltiness of her perspiration.

Ayu gasps and squirms as you take your time paying special attention on her thighs. The intense smell of her and the saltiness is teasing you as much as it is her. 

Soon it gets too much for her and she reaches down and grabs you by the hair, pulling your face in between her legs. Your mouth ends up flush against the stickiness there and you open your lips and dart out your tongue.

Ayu gasps. You lick her, once, getting your first clear taste of her. She tastes incredible, and it’s like someone has opened a mainline right down to your dick. If you were rock hard before, you’re diamonds now. You touch the tip of your tongue to her now-engorged clit and flick at it. This time she cries out, but it’s strangled as she bites down on her lip to stop herself.

You smile to yourself, pleased by such an extreme reaction. You flatten your tongue against her clit, amazed at how hard it is. Ayu is obviously as turned on as you are. Her fingers entwine in your hair and you feel her body tremble as you continue to lap at her, getting an even richer taste than before. It’s almost overpowering, the intense scent and taste of her making your head reel. You return to licking her, softly now, realising that she’s probably so sensitive that too much would be painful rather than pleasurable. You run your fingers across her pelvis, fluttering them against her moist skin, wanting to tease her.

But Ayu has other ideas. She lets go of your hair and pushes your hands away as she scissors her legs and traps your head between her thighs. There’s just barely enough space to breathe, but it doesn’t matter. You’re far too into it now to worry too much about the pain of your head being in her vice-like grip. 

You’re forced to breathe through your nose as you let your tongue dance across her. Sucking her clit into your mouth, you press your tongue against it. She’s getting even wetter, her fresh juices blisteringly hot. You squeeze her clit between your lips and graze it lightly with your teeth.

This time Ayu does cry out. You pray that the sound of the shower’s water sluicing against the tiles is enough to mask it.

Her thighs grip you harder and you feel as though you might black out. There’s only one thing you can do, you realise: make her come. And so you redouble your efforts, alternating between sucking and flicking at her clit with your tongue. 

Ayu’s trembling grows stronger, almost epileptic. She grows even hotter against your mouth, her clit harder still, throbbing. And then she’s coming, her legs shaking and almost lifting her off the edge of the bath as she cries out with a series of strangled cries like an animal in pain. Then her body shudders, her legs go slack and you’re released from her grip. You fall back onto your butt on the tiles, sucking in the water-logged air. You don’t have time to recover: Ayu has already got to her trembling feet and is lifting you up. She kisses you, hard, hungrily, her tongue piercing into your mouth. The taste of her kiss is almost saltier than she was between her legs, and you feel yourself go weak at the knees. You’d collapse if she wasn’t holding you up.

She breaks the kiss, smiles at you as she shakes her head. “That was amazing,” she says. “It’s a crime you don’t have a girlfriend.”

You’re standing there, still gasping, as Ayu gently but firmly pushes you out of the door. “I’d better finish up here before your mom gets angry at me for using all the hot water.” 

The door closes on your face and you wonder what the hell just happened. But you’ve got a more pressing problem. You’re almost sick with excitement, your dick painfully hard and aching for release. 

You stumble to your room and throw yourself on your bed, tearing your pants off. Your dick is in your hand seconds later and you start pumping at it like you’re trying to kill yourself. There’s no teasing yourself or drawing out the pleasure this time: all you need and want is a release from this horrible pressure and tension.

You start groaning as you feel yourself quickly reaching that tipping point, and so you don’t notice the door opening. Then you realise someone is in your room and your hand flies off your dick, your heart pumping like crazy. 

It’s not your mother, thank fuck. It’s Ayu. Straight out of the shower, she’s sopping wet, her hair slick against her head and neck, her breasts bare and dripping. She’s wearing the towel around her waist like before.

You start to sit up, stuttering an apology, but she already kneeling beside the bed and pushing you down onto your back with one hand. She gazes at you, her eyes glassy.

“Sorry,” she says. “I realised I was being really selfish. Here, let me help.” Then she leans down and engulfs your dick in her mouth. 

The feeling of hot wetness that surrounds you is utterly incredible. Ayu wastes no time, lapping at the base of your cock with her tongue, her hand stroking across your length. She takes the entirety of you into her throat without gagging, then lets it slip back out, slimy with her saliva. She plays her tongue across the head, the tip delving into the eye of your cock and lapping at the almost constant stream of precum spilling from you. Then she takes you back inside her mouth, just far enough that the head is resting on her tongue. The speed of her stroking increases, and with it the intensity of your pleasure. Your head is filled with a blinding white light as you start to come, and Ayu gasps, but leaves your dick in her mouth. A tsunami of semen spurts out across the length of her hot tongue and her throat contracts as she tries to swallow as much as she can. But it’s too much and some comes spilling out the side of her mouth. 

At last you stop coming and your dick grows soft. You push her away gently, your dick now far too sensitive, and she lets it pop out of her mouth.

She looks up to you from beneath her dark lashes. Her eyes glisten, the smile on her lips almost saturnine.

“It tastes even better hot,” she says.

She gets up and wipes the white streak at the side of her lips into her mouth, then turns and walks off without another word, leaving you lying there, still trembling with the aftershocks of your orgasm and dazed by the speed and intensity of what just happened. 

With the muted hissing of the shower in your ears you fall into a half-sleep.. 

Suddenly a beep from outside wakes you up. You jump off the bed and go out into the corridor just as Ayu comes barging out of her room pulling on her tracksuit top. Her hair is still wet and she apologises as she leaps down the stairs two steps at a time.

She’s pulling on her shoes while you’re still making your way down the stairs. There’s another beep, louder and more insistent this time, and Ayu turns as she laces up her final shoe. “Sorry. I’ve gotta go,” she says. “See you tonight I guess?”

The beeping becomes rhythmic and Ayu shouts out, “Oh shut up! I’m coming!” then she’s out through the front door and sprinting across your front lawn to the minibus. 

You stand there and watch the minibus pull away. Suddenly bereft, you slink back inside the house to have breakfast by yourself. 

Luckily, you’ve got a ton of stuff to do today, and wrapped up in all your little errands in the city you don’t really have much time to obsess over Ayu or what happened until you’re on your way home.

What exactly did happen? Was it just some very dedicated teasing on her part? How does she feel about you? All those stories of the two of you when you were kids... you guess you were pretty clueless back then. Maybe you’re still clueless, Like Ayu says.

It’s all too confusing so you give up. But as you pull in to the driveway of your house you feel your heart beating faster with excitement. Ayu should already be home and you can’t wait to see her again.

But when you let yourself in your mother is waiting for you. She doesn’t look happy.

“Did something happen between you and Ayu?” she demands, her eyes accusatory. 

You put down your stuff and start babbling. Did your mother hear the two of you this morning or something? Is that what all this is about? But somehow you don’t think she’d be all that mad about it. In fact, she seemed to have been trying to get the two of you together... shouldn’t she be happy?

You ask her what the problem is. 

Her face slides from anger into worry. “Ayu came back and early and picked her stuff up this afternoon while you were out. She says she’ll be staying somewhere else tonight.”

You heart feels suddenly icy. Shit. Something must have happened. Was it something you said? You stand there, wracking your brains, replaying everything that happened in your head, trying to find something that might have triggered her to leave. 

Your mother notices the look on your face and she sighs and doesn’t press the matter any further. “She was a nice girl, too. So polite. She thanked us for everything and left us some cookies. Have one if you like... they’re in the kitchen.”

You stick your head inside and see a little bowl on the kitchen table. Just like your mother said, cookies. 

You decide the cookies can go fuck themselves and go upstairs. You suddenly have no appetite. 

\-----

The next day you have no energy. You just hang around the house, feeling like doing nothing. The air feels like a grey, suffocating blanket. Your mind keeps slipping back to Ayu, no matter how hard you try to distract yourself.

Ayu. So it really _had_ just been a bunch of elaborate teasing. She really hadn’t changed from the little pigtailed girl who had been such a mischievous troublemaker. All the times you stood up for her. Well, she’d called you a nice guy, right? And everyone knows what that means... 

Well, it’s all over now, anyway. Today’s the day of her match, and then tomorrow it’ll be back east for her. You’ll forget her in time. Anyway, she was a bit too tall and a bit too intense for you. Maybe a nice easy going girly-girl is more your type.

Then you remember how Ayu looked, glistening with sweat, her black hair plastered back, her dark eyes swimming, her lips half-opened with that lazy sexiness she had... the feel of her mouth around you.

Oh fuck, who are you kidding? You were dumb and fell in love with her. It was probably the plan all along. She was probably expecting you to rush off to the game and make a fool of yourself by professing your love for her. Then she and her friends would have been able to have a good laugh at your expense. 

You’re glad you didn’t give her the satisfaction. 

You take yourself downstairs and find those cookies of hers in the kitchen. You’re feeling hungry all of a sudden. Well, the jokes on her. She’s probably expecting you to turn up at any moment to the match but you’ll be here, eating her cookies. 

You pull the plastic wrap off and start eating them with violent satisfaction. You’ve eaten four when you notice there’s something in the bowl underneath them.

It’s a piece of folded paper. 

You take it out and wonder whether you should read it or just tear it up. Well, what difference does it make now? Even if it _is_ just a joke at your expense, she’s not around to laugh at you. 

You open it. It’s on surprisingly girly stationery, with hearts and puppies. There’s quite a lot written there in a small, curvy handwriting. You sigh and start to read.

_Hey,_

_I hope you enjoyed the cookies! I didn’t bake them myself, of course... you remember that time we tried to bake cookies and I left the mittens in the oven and they caught fire? Your mom was really angry. Well, I didn’t want to make her angry this time so I just bought these._

_But I guess you don’t want to read about cookies. I’m sorry for running out on you. I’m a coward at heart. Truth is, I couldn’t bare to see you again..._

You stop reading. There’s a pain in your chest. Also, she spelled ‘bear’ as ‘bare’. You decide you have to read the whole thing and keep going.

_...the coach really chewed me out for making everyone late, and then doing really badly at the training session. I guess I was just distracted. So I decided to stay away. I feel bad for doing it, but the truth is... man, it’s hard to write this down. Truth is, I think I’ve fallen for you. I knew that if I stayed one more night at your place that I wouldn’t be able to resist fucking your brains out..._

Somehow you manage to hold on to the letter and keep reading.

_...and if that happened there’s no way I could concentrate on the game. I hope you can forgive me for just rushing out like that. I can’t wait to see you at the match. I just know that having you there to support me I’ll play the best game ever. So don’t be late! Remember it starts at 11.30._

_Love, Ayu_

Your hands are trembling as you drop the letter and look up at the clock on the wall.

11.45. And it’s a fifteen minute drive to the university.

You throw your coat and shoes on, race out the front door and fall flat on your ass on the driveway. Then you get up, fumble with your car-keys, leap into the driver’s seat and pull out into the street right in front of an oncoming car. There’s a screech of braking tires and rampant honking, but it barely registers. You shift into drive and then you punch your foot down on the accelerator.

It’s usually a fifteen minute drive to the University, but you make it in nine. Luckily, you know where the sports centre is and you park as close to the entrance as you can, extremely badly. But you don’t care about that. There’s only one thing on your mind. 

You run inside, flashing them the family and friends supporters pass at the front. The sound of shoes squeaking against the court surface and the shouts and cheering of the spectators leads you to the match. You see that the bleachers are almost full, but as you glance this way and that for an empty spot as close to the game as possible, you notice the scoreboard.

The game is onto its third set and almost finished. They’re tied one set each, but Ayu’s team is down ten points.

You find a spot. It’s not such a popular position since it’s on the visitor’s side, but it’s perfect for you. You scan the court, looking for Ayu. Then you spot her. Her team is returning the rally, and one of the girls in the back row sets it up. It’s a desperate set, but Ayu is underneath it in a flash and almost lifts it over the net. Like she said, volleyball is not just all about spiking. The opposing team is caught off-foot by the slow ball - it almost seems to be floating - but one of their setters falls on one knee and manages to set it up neatly just above the net. Their right-side hitter is on top of it a moment later, spiking it hard down into the front row. It’s a brutal spike and it leaves Ayu and her team scrambling. The middle blocker is closest and she throws herself underneath it, but the bump goes wild. The libero’s set is more desperation than anything else, the ball going up high and to one side. Ayu has to change direction to get under it, and she throws herself into the air off her left foot. She spikes the ball with a bit of spin and it finds a tiny gap in the opposing team’s defence. There’s a roar from the crowd and you join it. But then the sharp shrill of the whistle indicating the scoring of a point is followed by a quick series of them. You’re not sure what it means, but the crowd starts to murmur. Then you see that Ayu is on the ground, clutching her right leg. She seems to be in pain.

You’re off the bleachers in a heartbeat and running down to the court. There are a few half-hearted motions to stop you, but when Ayu sees you and says something they let you past.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she says, rubbing at her leg. Her coach pushes her hands away as the team doctor examines it. Ayu looks up at you. Her eyes are hard and for a moment you think she’s angry with you, but it quickly melts away. She suddenly looks fragile and disappointed, but somehow relieved as well.

“Slept in, huh?” she says. Lying back on her hands with her legs stretched out in front of her, you’re reminded again of just how tall she is. “Well, you came just in time to see me an absolute fool of myself.” She grimaces as the doctor manipulates her leg, and reaches out for you with her hand. You don’t hesitate. You kneel at her side and take it in your own. Her hand feels strangely cold and you squeeze it.

You’re about to explain what happened when Ayu’s teammate Michi appears beside you. She looks from Ayu’s pain-filled face to the doctor at her leg to you kneeling beside her and places her hands on her hips and whistles. “Well, that’s that, I guess.” She turns to you. “Where have you been? She’s been looking for you everywhere. We really needed you earlier, Mr. Good-luck Charm. We’ve been getting our asses kicked out there.”

Good-luck charm? You notice Ayu is glaring at Michi, but her glare is quickly replaced by a grimace as the doctor applies ice to the leg. The smile on Michi’s face is almost evil. “You mean to say you never told him his nickname?” She looks back at you. “I guess she was embarrassed about it after all. You’re all she’s been talking about lately, that stuff you used to get up to as kids. Well, I guess even luck gives out. We’re all out of subs, so we’ll have to forfeit.”

“No,” says Ayu suddenly. “We haven’t come this far to forfeit.”

Michi laughs. “There’s no way you can keep playing,” she says.

Ayu’s eyes are hard with determination. “Just watch me.”

She talks to the coach and the doctor. There’s some muttering between the two of them and then the coach nods his head.

“But if it gives you any more pain,” he says. “I’m forfeiting. I can’t lose you for next season over some stupid heroism.”

Ayu nods. The doctor gets busy strapping her leg. After a while Ayu stands up with your help and walks about on it. Then she gives a bounce or two. Her eyes flicker when she lands the second time and you realise she’s still in some pain, but doing her best to hide it.

The coach touches your shoulder and you nod. You turn to leave the court when Ayu takes your hand.

“Thank you,” she says, her dark eyes glistening. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down. You never have.”

You decide not to return to the bleachers but stand a little way back from the edge of the court. No one seems to want to stop you.

The game starts again. Ayu’s team goes down another two points, but then they seem to find their rhythm again. A spike from the left side attacker gives them their first point, and then Ayu floats another one just over the net. It’s a bit tentative, but it seems to restore her confidence and the match returns to its usual high-speed return of rally after rally.

Ayu seems to be everywhere on the court at once, digging spikes one moment, blocking and dumping the next. The roar of the visitor’s supporters start to drown out the much larger home side as Ayu’s team rallies and pulls out play after amazing play.

Then the final whistle sounds. Ayu’s team ends up losing, but only by four points. 

As the team leaves the court, tired but not defeated, Michi slaps Ayu a resounding thump on the back.

“You managed a quadruple-double out there,” she says. “We might have gone down, but at least you stopped us from embarrassing ourselves.” Then she notices you and that evil smile returns. “But I guess it’s Mr. Good-luck Charm I should be thanking, huh?” She grabs you under the arms and seems determined to lift you up off your feet and carry you away, but Ayu takes hold of her arm before she can.

“Hey,” she says. “Hands off my property! You want a good-luck charm, you’ve got to go find your own.”

Michi chuckles and lets go of you. “Okay, okay. Be that way.”

You’re about to start commiserating with her when Ayu takes your hands in her own. She shakes her head.

“No, there’s no need. I’m not disappointed. That’s volleyball, I guess. I’m just glad you were there.” The smile on her face is shy. “I’m kind of happy, though. It means our season is over, so I can maybe hang around here a little bit longer.” She looks up at your from under her dark lashes. “That is... that is, if you want me around, I mean.”

You give no reply, and just throw your arms around her waist, hugging her to you. Ayu’s surprised by the suddenness of it all, but then she’s hugging you back. She’s soaked with sweat and the scent of her perspiration is overwhelming, but incredibly sexy, too: the fact that her boobs are pressing against your face just makes matters worse. 

“You really don’t care that I’m taller than you?” she whispers into your hair.

You shake your head. 

She sighs and squeezes you tightly.

Then Ayu bends over and lifts you up into her arms, literally sweeping you off your feet. You yelp, thinking you’ll end up falling on your back, throwing your arms around her neck and clinging to her like a child, but you’ve underestimated her strength again. She might be slim, but the muscle mass she has is more than enough to hold you up in a princess-carry.

There are cat-calls, shouting and hooting from all sides as she carries you from the court. You should be mortified, but the warmth of her body, the firmness of her arms, that scent you’ve fallen in love with: all of it makes you feel safe and loved. You press your face into her chest, not caring who’s watching or what they think.

“Hey Ayu,” shouts a voice you recognise as Michi’s, bright with teasing humour. “Where’re you taking that good-luck charm?”

“Back to his place. We’ve still got a lot of catching up to do,” she shouts back. “And he’s not my good luck charm... he’s my boyfriend.”

The End


End file.
